Deathly Hallows

[Doug R.]

I finished it yesterday. Anyone else want to talk about it? Don't post until you've finished it though.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Might want to stick a spoiler note in the title when people do start talking. I really kinda wish there weren't a topic on it just yet (hasn't even been out a week). I'm still rereading the 6th atm.

[Zanthos]

read it, enjoyed it, but it really was a sub par book.

Does anyone else feel a better ending to the book would have been having the british prime minister rounding up everyone wearing robes and shooting them? That truly would have brought closure to the harry potter series. I mean, the PM knows wizards exist, he so coulda played the cult aspect and said they all committed mass suicide, and lets face it, whats gona win, a gun that fires on command or a wand that has to be moved while saying an incantation.

*bang*Av...*thud*

Everyone glosses over the fact that if the muggles banded togeather, they could easily take down the wizarding world. Its why they had to do their silly secrecy thing anyway, cuz even back in the 1600's muggles had superior fighting prowess, and muggle tech advances faster than wizarding knowledge.

spoilers so font is white, harder to read so just skip if you dun wana know. Nothing serious though.

but yeah, i rank it C+ quality, B enjoyment. too many inconsistancies. (think super long lasting polyjuice potion, and hermonie's family moving to aussie, but then them magically not moving some time later, the ease in which everyone is hurling out unforgivable curses, ect...) I also think everything just seemed to fall into place too easily, by the middle of the book it was pretty certain harry couldn't lose no matter what. he had too much going for him, even when nothing was going at all. I did really like Snape's memory chapter though, that was one of the few extremly well written parts.

but damn harry is a lucky dog, though i would totally prefer to be in ron's place in the epilogue.

[deadboy]

***SPOILER WARNING***



I thought it was a fairly good book, but damn, what was all that hallows stuff? You -don't introduce a completely new concept three quarters of the way through the last book of a 7 book series completely randomly. You just don't. I'm glad they ended up playing very little part, if harry had've used them at the end it would've been absolutely suck. It ended fairly well though. My main criticism was that it suffered from the old problem of the other books in that the first half of the book was pointless and the story wouldn't have missed much with it gone


***SPOILERS OVER***

But yeah, despite being all right, its nowhere near my favourite one of the series. I reckon the fifth was my favourite, then the third

[Doug R.]

Anyone that hasn't finished it and goes into a thread discussing it deserves to get spoiled. Just my opinion.

I liked the book, and I thought the ending was great, although I thought the Harry-as-Christ metaphor was overly blatant. I'm glad Snape was vindicated, because no matter how evil he got, there was a little part of me that always trusted Dumbledore. Personally, I think that with the little attention the movies have been paying to Snape (which blows, because Rickman is the best actor in the series), they are going to have a hard time making people care about his character in the final movie.

I had a few disappointments:

1) I wanted to know what they all did when they grew up. Did Harry become an Auror? What about the rest of them?

2) The quality of the writing wasn't that great for some parts. Sometimes I wasn't sure who was speaking (a frequent problem with all the books) and it wasn't clear at the time what happened at the end with Neville and the sorting hat (she could have made it much more significant and obvious. As it was written, it happened very fast, and it wasn't clear it was the sword until after the fact).

3) I wanted to know how paintings work. Dumbledore's painting seemed to have more sentience than the others, as it was scheming with Snape.

4) Dolores Umbridge did NOT die.

5) I have a hard time accepting that Harry, who is generally daft, can suddenly put everything together at the end.

6) The cover had nothing to do with the story what-so-ever. I had a fun time deducing what was going on on the cover before reading it, and that scene never came to be (It looked like Harry and Voldemort working in unison in front of the Veil in the Department of Magical Mysteries, and without wands)

But despite all of that, I loved it.

1) I always knew McGonigal had it in her

2) Mrs. Weasley kicked ass, and swore!

3) The book did a great job invoking sympathy for half-breed wizards. The scene in the ministry with the witch in front of Umbridge's commission really bothered me, and was metaphorical of what the Nazi's put the Jews through (after all, we never knew what happened to the half-breeds if they were judged guilty - the dementors were not encouraging). I think the saddest part of the whole book was when that witch declared that her children were afraid she wasn't coming home to them.

4) Voldemort essentially killing himself was by far the most appropriate way for him to die. I never would have bought Potter (or anyone else) killing him in a duel.

5) I'm glad all the loose ends are tied up.

I did think the whole hallows thing was sprung on us suddenly, but it didn't bother me so much. I think they were simply a tool to display Voldemort's ignorance and Dumbledore's weakness.

[Leo Luncid]

The cover had nothing to do with the story what-so-ever. I had a fun time deducing what was going on on the cover before reading it, and that scene never came to be (It looked like Harry and Voldemort working in unison in front of the Veil in the Department of Magical Mysteries, and without wands)

The cover showed Harry Potter about to catch the Elder Wand out of the frame when he successfully Disarmed Voldemort at the Great Hall. He using his free hand, his left hand, to catch the Elder Wand because he had Draco Malfoy's in his right hand, although it doesn't show in the cover. Also, I didn't expect the Great Hall to be domed and circular, but oh well. It's just an artist's misconception.


Yeah, just read it today, think the Deathly Hallows is great; I actually welled up in tears three times while reading this book. Rowling might have left us with a few questions, but they're left out reasonably enough. The comic relief efficiently relieved me of my grief, and I absolutely like the concept of the Deathly Hallows themselves. I still remember Harry Potter kissing and swallowing that old Snitch, and it reminds of how obssessed Gollum is with the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings.

There maybe another scene that seemed parallel to Lord of the Rings: Ron smashing the first Horcrux, with compares to Frodo trying to destroy the One Ring (Ron making that deed seemed just as unlikely as the latter, if not more so).

Tolkien aside, I feel completely satisfied with the conclusion of Harry Potter, with no significant complaints.

[Kev Milsom]

Now that I managed to prise it off the other members of the family, I finally finished it today and thought it was excellent.

The last 150 pages or so are particularly riveting and I found it almost impossible to put the book down at times...especially 'The Princes Tale' chapter, with its many revelations about the events of the previous six books.

Made me wonder what JK will choose to write about next, assuming she plans other books.

[formerly known as hf]

Made me wonder what JK will choose to write about next, assuming she plans other books.

She's laughing all the way to the bank.

Ha ha ha, you fools she cackles as she becomes the richest woman in the world.

"This billion dollar empire" she screams "I built on turgid re-creations of public school lit.!" she exclaims. "Yes! For it is nought but recycled Blyton, with a dash of Thomas Hughes for good luck" she decries. "Ha! I'm a giant pulping machine which made billions!"

JK then promptly proceedes to buy a moderately sized carribbean island and live her life in luxury.

Fools

[Doug R.]

There is no such thing as an original story, and probably hasn't been for hundreds of years.

[saztronic]

Made me wonder what JK will choose to write about next, assuming she plans other books.

She's laughing all the way to the bank.

Ha ha ha, you fools she cackles as she becomes the richest woman in the world.

"This billion dollar empire" she screams "I built on turgid re-creations of public school lit.!" she exclaims. "Yes! For it is nought but recycled Blyton, with a dash of Thomas Hughes for good luck" she decries. "Ha! I'm a giant pulping machine which made billions!"

JK then promptly proceedes to buy a moderately sized carribbean island and live her life in luxury.

Fools

Meh. I'm supposed to feel like a dupe (or dope) because I helped some single mother on the dole get richer than God? I got too many other things to be feeling bad about to bother. I hope she buys a place on Mustique, I hear it's really cool there. Probably spelled it wrong.

Anwyay, the book was a fitting end to the series. It had a lot of unnecessary gobbleydook that felt like a contrived attempt to create tension or character strife where none was needed or even particularly useful; followed by some fun adventures and a surprisingly interesting conclusion. Much like all the rest of the series.

I'm reading the first book to my six-year-old now, though -- amazing to watch how utterly sucked into it she is even at that age, by the way -- and it's striking how well the series fits together first book to last. Hagrid mentions returning Sirius' motorike in the first chapter, but I don't think Sirius shows up again in the whole first book; Aunt Petunia Dursley makes reference to the day Lily received her invitation to Hogwarts, how her sister was a freak, that loop closed nicely in book seven. Lots of other examples.

She may not be the best writer in the world, but she's reasonably entertaining, and she kept it together to write the whole series consistently and logically over a 15-year span, even after the media and success circus took off. More than a lot of us could have done, I imagine.